navel-gazing

Related to navel-gazing: omphaloskepsis, contemplate navel

navel-gazing

The act of excessively focusing on one's personal problems or concerns, to the exclusion of other people or other issues. She said my navel-gazing was one of the biggest reasons she broke up with me. If our party is going to be successful in the future, then we can't be dragged down by navel-gazing about the loss of this election.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

navel-gazing

or

navel-contemplation

If you accuse someone of navel-gazing or navel-contemplation, you are criticizing them for thinking only about themselves and their own problems or activities, rather than the problems or activities of other people. Tory MP Martin Brison says he is more interested in developing policies for the future than in navel-gazing about the past. He called for an end to Labor's post-election navel-gazing. Note: Navel-gazing can be used before a noun. The film is a sort of navel-gazing look at Hollywood. Note: You can also say that someone gazes at their navel or contemplates their navel. The Institute has always been notorious for contemplating its own navel. Note: These expressions are used to show disapproval. Note: Your navel is your tummy button or belly button.
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.
See also:
  • contemplation
  • navel-contemplation
  • gaze at (one's) navel
  • navel
  • gaze
  • contemplate
  • contemplate (one's) navel
  • contemplate your navel
  • low blow
  • (as) vain as a peacock
References in periodicals archive
I'm as prone to navel-gazing as anyone else or maybe more so since I've also worked in journalism, another profession whose practitioners are constantly obsessing over their collective value.
Over the weekend, Mr Cameron urged Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to come together behind the coalition and not to descend into "division and navel-gazing".
"But they will not tolerate division and navel-gazing. They know that the problems are big and they do not want to see politicians fall out in the process of dealing with them.
A more-than-capable pop arranger, Ramos-Nishita is at his best mixing elements of navel-gazing rock and earnest folk with smart-assed pop punk edges.
Harvey Pekar is best known for his navel-gazing comic series, American Splendor, in which he enlists celebrated artists to illustrate tales of his humdrum life in Cleveland.
Save us from Nilson's self-indulgent navel-gazing. Instead get involved in your parish or community service club to help the poor, and you'll find all the black, Latino, and other friends you could want.
Over the last couple of decades, parishes and dioceses all across the country have embarked on various navel-gazing, brain-storming, and workshopping exercises to deal with the ubiquitous "priest shortage." Invariably you hear that the laity must "get more involved" (I'm not sure how, since in some parishes we're doing everything except consecrating hosts.)
I am sure I can't be alone in despairing of the usual earnest, navel-gazing, humourless content of Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand.
He journeys ever inward in the manner of an amateur scientist searching for some microcosmic fundamental: At the Whitney, navel-gazing self-portraits of one kind or another proliferate, and there is a sense that much of the work was embarked on primarily for its maker's own amusement (admittedly a trait common to much art but arguably better hidden in most).
In the context of the AR, Preview was originally an annual and slightly solemn, navel-gazing fixture of the magazine that ran from 1954 until 1969.
In the broadest sense, blogs can range from someone's navel-gazing musings about intimate personal details to literary, political and social commentary on a variety of events and subjects.
"The diligence and intelligence of its people" garnered 25 percent of the vote while "the humanistic and righteous principles of its people" came in with a navel-gazing 17 percent.
After the euphoric headlines, capitalist triumphalism speedily gave way to navel-gazing. The victory parade has since been marred by anti-capitalist protests and vague talk of a "third way," or socially responsible capitalism.
Media navel-gazing is hardly new, With so many journalists scurrying about the nation's capital, they naturally get together on occasion to consider how important they are.
* And the most self-indulgently navel-gazing show of them all is, of course, 42nd Street itself, which has nothing--nothing--on its mind beyond dazzling audiences with extravagantly showy musical numbers.